Fuel Smarts

The Electrification Coalition and FleetAnswers have teamed up to provide online resources on plug-in electric vehicle deployment.

Resources will include information on best practices in vehicle deployment and case studies from early adopters. The content will be available in the Alternative Fuel section on the FleetAnswers website.

With more than 16 million public and private fleet vehicles on the road in the United States, the concentration of buying power associated with fleet operators and fleet management companies represents a significant opportunity to drive deployment of the electric drive vehicle industry, note the two companies. Initial case studies highlight early lessons in plug-in vehicle operations from FedEx Express and Pacific Gas & Electric, two of the largest fleets in their respective industries.

"This partnership between the Electrification Coalition and FleetAnswers is an important step toward accelerating the deployment of electric vehicles on a mass scale to dramatically reduce our nation's dangerous reliance on oil," said Robbie Diamond, president and CEO of the Electrification Coalition. "Fleets possess important characteristics that allow them to be leaders in the electric vehicle space, such as a willingness to consider the total cost of ownership of the vehicle, defined routing, access to central parking facilities, and the ability to leverage low maintenance costs."

"As a member of the Electrification Coalition and an organization with more than 45,000 vehicles of various types, FedEx Express believes that the lessons we have learned can help other organizations make informed decisions on how electric vehicles can be a part of fleet mix," said Dennis Beal, FedEx Express vice president of global vehicles.